Seattle City Council Briefing 6/1/2021

Good morning, everyone.

The June 1st, 2021 Council briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 9.32 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Juarez.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Mosquera.

Present.

Peterson.

Here.

Swant.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

If there is no objection, the minutes of May 10th, May 17th, and May 24th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

President's report, just want to welcome everybody back from Memorial Day weekend.

I'm of course happy to be back with you all virtually here at today's meeting.

I want to thank Council Member Herbold for serving as Council President for a time for the last two Mondays while I spent some time out of the office.

Of course, this is my first meeting back since the really tragic fire and incidents that both took my mother-in-law a couple of weeks ago and also ended up resulting in us losing our home as well for at least the next year.

I am I'm deeply grateful to each of you who have personally reached out to me in the weeks, a couple of weeks since those incidents happened.

I'm really grateful for all of your support, both here on the official side, but also just sort of your personal support of me and my family as we continue to deal with the instability created by that really tragic incident.

and in our personal lives.

And so I just want to thank all of you for your understanding and your patience as we continue to figure out how to transition into whatever this new normal is for our family.

And, you know, as we continue to solidify our housing for the next year at least.

So I really appreciate, again, all of you being supportive of me and my family at this time.

I've gotten so many wonderful notes from each of you.

from members of the general and broad community and really grateful and humbled to be able to be back today and have an opportunity to, again, try to dig back into the important work that we do every day.

So thanks again, my deepest appreciation to all of you for all of the immense support you've given me over the last couple of weeks.

Not in the clear yet in terms of my family, but we are, with time we are healing and we are learning how to become a little bit more stable.

So thanks so much for everything, folks.

So let's go ahead and move into a preview of today's City Council Actions, Council, and Regional Committees.

We will, of course, go in the order of the roll call rotation.

We'll begin with Councilmember Strauss, and then we will hear from Councilmember Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, and then I'll go ahead and conclude this agenda discussion.

So I'll hand it over to Councilmember Strauss.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

It's really great to see you.

Again, deepest condolences and just happy to have you with us today.

First, before I get into my committee report, I'm excited to that tomorrow is hosting a town hall Wednesday, June 2nd at 530 from 530 p.m.

to 7 p.m.

on Zoom.

We'll have Dr. Ben Noble from our city budget office.

We'll have Director Alvarado from the Office of Housing and CEO Mark Jones of the Regional Authority King County Regional Authority on Homelessness to provide short presentations.

I'll be giving a quick overview of my work this year, and then I'll be taking questions and answers from you, District 6 residents.

So, excited.

Please do sign up.

There's a sign up form on my website as well as we'll be pushing it out in my newsletter.

We did last week and will again today.

I'm also before I get into my committee report.

I'm very excited to report back about the maritime and industrial lands advisory.

committee that the mayor's office has been stewarding for the last 18 plus months.

Last week, we had the final meeting of the Maritimes Industrial Strategy stakeholder process.

And colleagues, I think going into the meeting, everyone was holding their breath because I do not believe we thought we would reach 80% consensus amongst the group.

The process began with 23 stakeholders and the goal of reaching 80% agreement on any recommendations.

This is a high bar for the diverse mix of strong views in our maritime and industrial lands, a group that oftentimes disagrees on almost everything.

And it was amazing to find agreement on some very important ways that we can improve the maritime and industrial lands.

So after more than a year of discussion, I'm happy to report that the stakeholders did reach and exceed the 80% threshold on a set of recommendations that will shape the future of these lands.

The recommendations will enact stronger protections for industrial lands, closing zoning loopholes, encouraging more people to take advantage of the opportunities in the maritime and manufacturing and logistics careers, while also creating flexibility to better utilize the land especially around our new and existing light rail stations.

These recommendations will need to be implemented over the coming months and into 2022 through legislation, amendments to the comprehensive plan, and an environmental impact statement.

I am looking forward to taking up this consensus package in the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee soon and completing this long process.

And with this level of agreement, we have the opportunity to make important changes to our maritime and industrial lands and will now wait for the mayor to transmit the agreed upon legislation comp plan amendments and begin the EIS process.

It will be critical that these pieces of legislation, EIS, comp plan amendments are transmitted in the form in which they were agreed upon last week.

So colleagues, I am excited to give you more updates as this shapes up.

We should be expecting legislation and comp plan amendments from the mayor's office in the next few months to be taken up in September.

Just as we move into the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee report, this is a good opportunity.

I've spoken to many of you colleagues about my request to have awareness of legislation coming that would be destined for my committee three months in advance.

And I will always remain confidential if you don't want to talk to other people about it.

It is important for my office to understand what is coming to the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee because of the public notice requirements regarding land use policy.

So if You may think that in three months, everything looks clear, but because we have so many different moving pieces coming to the committee, it's very important that everyone gives me a three-month heads up so that we're able to plan accordingly.

Thank you.

So there are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction and referral calendar.

And there are nine items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full agenda.

We have appointments to the Urban Forestry Commission, the Community Involvement Commission, Seattle Design Commission, and the Pike Place PDA Governing Council.

We also have Council Bill 12086, which is a mutually offsetting benefit property transfer for the Greenwood Senior Center to the Finney Neighborhood Center Association, which we're very excited.

This has been a long-awaited bill.

And then we have three bills, Council Bill 12084, 83, and 85, which updates the grading code, makes corrections to the Seattle construction code, and updates the boiler and steam engine operations code.

a public hearing today on council bill 120080 which will extend the moratorium on the redevelopment of manufactured home parks for an additional six months while council member Juarez and I make the final necessary, smooth out the legislation for the long-term preservation as it works its way through the SEPA appeal.

We plan to vote on council bill 120080 at full council next Monday, June 7th.

And the June 9th meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is going to be canceled.

So our next meeting will be on Wednesday, June 23rd.

I'm very excited to report that last week I was able to join the North Seattle Industrial Association for their monthly meeting.

I received a follow-up and briefing on recent tenant protection legislations from our law department.

Followed up with an update from SDCI on tenant protection legislation.

Checked in with Superintendent Aguirre at Seattle Parks Department.

We spoke about the I got a great briefing on the affordable housing exemptions for religious institutions that is before my committee right now, colleagues, I'll be excited to.

bring past that as soon as we can.

This allows religious institutions to have an additional density for affordable housing, and there's a number of projects that could really benefit from this.

Last week, my staff attended the Wallingford Community Council meeting, and on Wednesday, I attended the Growth Management Planning Council meeting for the final briefing on countywide planning policies before we vote next month.

I also attended the final meeting of the Maritime and Industrial Strategy Work Group and received briefings from SDOT, SPU, and we saved City Light for next time.

So this coming week, my staff will be attending the Finney Ridge Community Council on Tuesday.

I'll be attending Transportation Utilities Committee as usual.

And on Wednesday, tomorrow, I will be hosting my District 6 Resident Town Hall, focusing on ARPA, housing, and homelessness.

Here in District 6, last week, I met with neighbors from Finney, Ballard, Sunset Hill, Greenwood, Green Lake, and we discussed about the creation of Climate Action Committee and how everyday people can address climate crisis, talked to a resident about SPD funding, and two people concerned about homelessness around Green Lake, another person concerned about homelessness in industrial areas.

I had one individual mention to me that they called the police about a homeless person thinking that that was the best way to respond.

I would say, just a reminder, if there's a criminal or life-threatening incident occurring, call 911 for everyone else.

If it's behavioral health, that is a medical call.

If it is just that they need services.

Those are those are not calls.

The police department should be feeling fielding as they have many other higher priorities.

If you ever if anyone watching this video has questions about who to call, you can always email my office and we have an auto response set up with the correct numbers to call if you are interested.

This last week I also on Memorial Day had the opportunity to join the Boy Scouts Troop 827 at Crown Hill Cemetery for the annual Memorial Day flag raising and memorial service, which was just is always great to be out in the community with community members.

This week, I'll be talking to residents during office hours on Thursday, June 10th from 2 to 6 p.m.

and I am excited for those conversations.

Office hours are usually the best part of my week.

Thank you, Council President.

That is my report.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss for that report.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Good morning.

and your ongoing service to the city.

And, you know, recovery and grief and stability are not a straight line.

And just know that we will continue to be here with you and the hopes for you and your family from the entire city of Seattle are with you.

I'm really, really confident that folks are thinking the best and hoping for that stability and recovery.

So moving on to my committee report, let's just start things off with a recognition that June is Pride Month to folks.

I know we'll have more to say about that as the month goes on.

Noting what's on the full council agenda today from my committee, we have Council Bill 119981 regarding the Seattle Police Department's budget.

Just want to quickly give an overview about the origins of the legislation and how it evolved.

First of all, this legislation is not about the Seattle Police Department budget for officer hiring.

The budget for officer hiring was fully funded in the 2021 budget adopted in November.

Secondly, the city of Seattle, as we all know, is under a consent decree with the U.S.

Department of Justice.

So any items covered under the consent decree require review and potential approval by the judge overseeing the consent decree.

and a court-appointed monitor has a role in that process.

So development after introduction were not only driven by public input, council member input, SPD input, but also by the consent decree process.

Back in August of 2020, you all recall that the council adopted resolution 31962, which stated that the city council will not support any budget amendments to increase the budget to offset overtime expenditures above the funds budgeted in 2020 or 2021. That is, despite that resolution, that is not what occurred in 2020. An additional 5.4 million spending requests from SPD late in the year did not align with that resolution.

And council voted to add 5.4 million in funds in late 2020, contrary to our policy not to do so.

The council stated our intent at that time to propose legislation to reduce the 2021 budget by $5.4 million in order to make sure that our actions were consistent with the spirit of the resolution.

After this was introduced, we heard from Judge Robart, who oversees the consent decree.

In the press, he stated sharp criticism of the council on budget issues, emphasizing that the consent decree is mandatory.

The monitor subsequently noted that meeting the requirements in the consent decree and the monitoring plan require an adequately resourced Seattle Police Department.

He went on to say concerns have been raised of the possibility of various cuts to the budget impacting the city's ability to comply with a range of requirements in the consent decree in 2021 in the future.

So in response to the judge and the monitor's comments, and because I had originally stated when we introduced that $5.4 million cut legislation that I would not be rigid about the dollar amount.

The council action in my mind is not about a dollar amount, it's about a culture of accountability.

and ensuring that it is understood that it is the council who budgets for the executive departments.

And so I sponsored a revised version of the bill on March 23rd because My objective all along has been to try to put together something that would pass the council.

That version included $3 million in cuts to the police department's budget, with $2 million going towards budget and $1 million in spending moved from SPD to other departments.

It released a $5 million proviso, and the committee acted in majority to place this version of the bill before the committee.

The bill also allows funding for civilian positions and technology requests that SPD had made at the March 9th meeting.

I also proposed additional staffing for public disclosure request positions as recommended by the city auditor in the 2015 report from the city auditor, which has been extensively reported on by the Seattle Times and called out by the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission director as problematic if left unaddressed.

They also included funding for the rental of additional evidence storage, as recommended by the inspector general.

The majority of committee members voted to substitute the introduced bill with the new version.

Soon after that, the monitor asked a series of questions of the police department, and upon receiving the reply, went to emphasize that funding levels and that funding be available for training and patrol.

And I think the comment at the time was something along the lines of now is not the time to cut the police department's budget.

So in response to try to address these ongoing concerns from the monitor, I further proposed amending the bill.

We'd reduce the size of the cut in previous discussions.

And in this last round of amendments in the last committee meeting, I proposed that we release a $2.5 million spending proviso that was intended for out-of-order layoffs based on sustained misconduct of police officers because it is not possible at this time to do out-of-order layoffs because of the intersection of the public safety civil service rules and state law.

So the bill indicates additional funds could be spent for training and patrol as identified by the monitor.

So at the end of the day, this is a tough compromise that I suspect few are satisfied with.

It allows for additional spending as the monitor has emphasized through the release of provisos, but still maintains a $3 million cut to the Seattle Police Department's budget.

Again, with the overall policy goal that we are trying to foster, a culture of accountability in the police department and a culture of fiscal oversight, as well as ensuring that it is the council that's in the driver's seat for making budget decisions around executive departments.

Lastly, the bill was voted out of committee with a do not pass recommendation with three votes in opposition.

This is despite the fact that a majority of council members, three members, voted in favor of the amendment in the last committee meeting and in favor of the substitute bill.

Because there was a do not pass recommendation to members who wish to support the investments in the bill itself and the reduction of the police department's budget to vote no to oppose the do not pass recommendation.

Moving on to other items, public health update.

I'm sure folks know that in King County, our public health leaders have issued a mask directive that everyone should wear masks while indoors.

The directive will remain in place until 70% of King County residents age 16 or older are fully vaccinated and protected.

The good news is we're getting very close.

Currently, 65% of residents have received all of their vaccination shots.

So if you know anyone 12 or over who's interested in getting vaccinated but hasn't done so yet, you can help by offering a ride, helping them find an appointment, or just encouraging them to take the first step.

Because Seattle residents have done such a great job with vaccination, the city announced last week that changes are coming to the city-run vaccination sites at Lewin Field, West Seattle, and Rainier Beach.

Over the month of June, each will wind down vaccinations.

The first to close for vaccinations will be West Seattle on June 9th.

If you haven't yet been vaccinated, now's the time.

You can take advantage of free and easy city-run vaccination sites while they're still providing vaccine.

You can walk up without an appointment, or you can make an appointment.

online at Seattle.gov forward slash vaccine or 206-684-2489.

The Soto vaccination site will continue providing vaccinations throughout the summer.

It's a drive-through site open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

and the Rainier and West Seattle vaccination sites will convert back to COVID testing.

The city will continue to provide vaccination through the Seattle Fire Department's mobile vaccination teams, which will provide pop-up vaccination clinics around the city throughout the summer.

We're so close to reaching our 70% goal of vaccination.

Please do encourage your friends or neighbors or family or loved ones to get vaccinated if they haven't already.

Thank you.

We have a number of upcoming meetings this week.

I've got a regional water quality committee meeting coming up this week.

Also, we'll be attending a meeting organized by community members in south Delridge and co-lead to talk about the changes that co-lead has at that site.

So looking forward to reflecting on what has been successful around that engagement on Tuesday evening.

Lastly, just want to lift up that we do have a proclamation signed today for observation of 7th National Violence Awareness Day.

June 4th is the observation of the 7th National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

You may recall Council Member Morales last week mentioned the Wear Orange campaign beginning the weekend of June 4th through 6th.

And the Greater Seattle Moms Demand Action will join the City Council meeting at 2 p.m.

on Tuesday.

June 1st to receive the proclamation.

I want to thank Council President Gonzalez and the Nguyen.

Both their work on this proclamation has been appreciated.

Council President Gonzalez has been a leader in gun violence prevention policy, and I truly appreciate the work of everyone in her office.

This work is so important to our communities, and this is a great opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to gun violence prevention.

And Nancy Dabrowski will be receiving the proclamation this afternoon on behalf of the Greater Edelman Demand Action.

And I believe that we will be under the direction of Council President Gonzalez collecting signatures for this proclamation this morning.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold, that is accurate.

Thank you so much for your work on the proclamation as well and for bringing this forward.

important restatement of this council's long-standing commitment to addressing gun violence and investing in additional gun safety and making policy changes that will effectuate greater safety within our communities and protection from preventable gun violence.

So colleagues, signatures will need to be affixed to the proclamation.

So I want to make sure that folks have an opportunity to ask any questions about the proclamation before we call the roll.

Are there any questions?

Hearing no questions, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation declaring June 4th National Gun Violence Awareness Day?

Sprouse.

Yes, absolutely.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Herbolds, anything else to report?

Okay.

Colleagues, any comments or questions for Council Member Herbold on her report?

And I do want to let Colleagues, I do want to let you know that Greg Doss from our Council Central staff did ask to be present this morning, and he is in fact present this morning in the event.

Any of you have any questions about the substance of the budget-related bill related to the Seattle Police Department that Council Member Herbold described as part of her report?

Any questions for Greg?

I am not seeing any hands go up.

All right, Greg, is there anything you wanted to add as part of the report?

Oh, thank you.

I, Council Member Herbold, did a very thorough job as always covering it.

Great.

All right.

Well, thanks for being with us, Greg.

I appreciate you volunteering to join us this morning.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you so much.

And I want to thank Council Member Herbold, who's been very helpful in trying to catch me up while I'm not on the committee.

I do really appreciate her leadership in stewarding this conversation, which we know took much longer than anticipated, given the court's weighing in on this.

So, Greg, I just wanted to ask a few questions.

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to sort of send you some questions in advance, but wanted to double check about the provisos and If the provisos are currently in place and the bill passes, all of the provisos will be lifted.

Is that accurate, including the $5 million proviso that the council president included in our proposal from last year?

Effectively, the provisos will be lifted.

The $5 million proviso that the council president included in the legislation on salary savings is effectively lifted, and I'll go into a little more in a second.

And then also, the $2.5 million proviso that was held for out-of-order layoffs is lifted.

Replacing Councilmember Gonzalez's proviso is a new proviso that still holds $5 million of salary savings, but releases it on a monthly basis as the department provides the council with staffing reports.

it would be automatically released every single time they sent a staffing report.

And by the end of the year, it would obviously be entirely in the department's custody, as opposed to the first version, Council Member Gonzalez's version, which held it in perpetuity until further appropriation.

Hopefully I haven't made that too confusing.

Can I ask one more follow-up question?

I do appreciate these times to ask these detailed questions.

And I know that, especially as we work remotely, this is a helpful tool for us to be able to get into some of the details if we're not on committee.

So thank you, Council President, for making this option available and Council Member Herbold for your leadership again in committee and for trying to catch me up.

Greg, I appreciate the memos that you've also sent.

I think what I'm struggling with a little bit is about the $13 million projected underspend.

And I agree with the good chair that investments in making sure that the public records requests that are being requested of SPD need to be answered appropriately.

I also agree that we need to have are folks who are community service officers be able to have the resources they need.

We understand some of those pockets are being held.

I also appreciate that there is a need for the evidence storage to be updated.

All of those things I agree with.

I guess just to break it down to a layman's perspective, if they're anticipating $13 million in underspend this year, And that has nothing to do with the council imposing any additional restrictions on their hiring plan, because we fully funded their hiring plan, as your memo reminded us.

Why could we not direct the department to use the underspend for those three areas where I think the council has agreement?

And apologies to other members of the committee who I'm sure you all went through these questions in detail already.

Does Council Member Herbold want to answer that instead of me?

Yeah, I see that Council Member Herbold has her hand up.

No need to apologize, Council Member Mosqueda.

We asked, we had Greg join us in the event that there were these substantive questions, and we recognize this is an important bill that not all council members have an opportunity to dive into like we have on the committee.

So go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

I'm just, those investments that you referenced, Council Member Mosqueda, are investments that are coming from the SPD cut.

So those are investments that are going to other departments.

So some dollars to address the public disclosure requests are going to Seattle IT.

Some dollars are going, still technically within the department, but being put into the Office of Professional Police Accountability.

And much like, the rest of what we maintain, what we don't cut, we are directing those dollars to be spent in those ways.

Of the dollars that are related to public disclosure requests within the police department, yes, we can direct dollars just like we're proposing to direct dollars for the the things in the bill that we have agreement on.

So whether or not that comes from the big $13 million underspend, future projected underspend, or whether or not it comes from this bill as proposed, I think it's the same the same outcome because, again, these are the $13 million underspend is from the fewer positions uh...

that ban anticipated uh...

funds are needed for and the five million dollar proviso is also from from that same that same source greg you could probably do clean up for me but i think that the main thing that i wanted to say in response to your question is is it requires a cut from the police department to uh...

or at least for the OIG recommendations, because those dollars go to FAS, from SPD to FAS.

Some go to Seattle IT for the public disclosure, and some go to the Office of Police Accountability.

Those aren't all funds that we can direct SPD to spend a particular way, because they need to go out of SPD's budget, and that's what they're proposed to do.

Just a little bit of further explanation.

Council Member Erbold said everything correctly.

The monies that are cut and sent to other departments, Seattle IT and FAS, for public disclosure and for additional evidence space, obviously that that will be something that those departments will have to spend that money on the money that is retained in SPD.

The council bill does ask that SPD spend that money on essentially their own priorities.

Separation pay technology investments.

and other emerging issues.

It doesn't require via proviso that that spending happen, but it does request that SPD spend the money on things that they identify.

All I have.

Any other questions for Greg or Council Member Gold?

It looks like there are no other questions.

I don't see any other hands raised.

Again, thanks, Greg, for being with us.

I appreciate it.

We're going to go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

I first want to start out and say it's good to have you back, Council President.

Certainly send our prayers and offerings from Indian country for you and your family.

what we call not just healing, but good medicine.

And I want you to know that you have been in our prayers and I had an opportunity to do that for you in Navajo country at the Grand Canyon.

So I just wanted you to know that.

Okay, so let me move on here.

I wanna thank Council Member Peterson for reading my notes while I was gone.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

There's, I'll Venmo you what I owe you.

So let me go through here then, see what we have here for our committee.

Public Assets and Native Communities Committee.

There are no items of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's agenda.

Due to yesterday's holiday, the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee will move our regularly scheduled monthly meeting to Friday, June 4th at two.

On that meeting's agenda, there are four items, two of which require public hearings.

The agenda has been published, and I encourage my colleagues to review the agenda and the items corresponding with the memo written by central staff.

Item one, Council Bill 120051, is related to Seattle Center sign code legislation.

Yolanda Ho is our contact person at central staff on this item.

Thank you, Yolanda.

Agenda item number two is Council Bill 120032, allows for a land swap from Seattle Parks and Recreation to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

It would transfer, yes, three feet of land from Seattle Parks along East Green Lake Way and Green Lake Way North between Northeast 50th and Northeast 57th Street to SDOT, which was inadvertently included as park property.

This legislation clarifies that the land is the property of SDOT and not parks.

Tracy Ratcliffe is our contact with central staff on this item.

Thank you, Tracy.

The last two items on the agenda are both related to Seattle's waterfront.

Oh, my God, this has been going on for a long time, but I'm glad we're getting closer.

We're at the final step in the process to establish a local improvement district, also known as a LID.

It's a funding tool to raise revenue, to pay for improvements, in the improvement area.

Eric McConaughey is the lead from central staff.

Eric, thank you so much for working closely with us and keeping us in line and what we need to do.

And the clerk, Madam Clerk, thank you as well for sending out the notice and all the legal information that we had to get out to particular people who would want to appeal this.

Agenda item three is subject to quasi-judicial rules, so I ask my colleagues again to continue to refrain from engaging with anyone on their individual assessments related to the waterfront.

I invite all council members to attend this committee meeting and learn more about the waterfront lid before the legislation moves to full council.

Moving to parks.

First of all, the shower program.

Between May 19th and May 25th, the parks department has served well over 325 people in the shower program.

Childcare, May 17th through May 21st, the parks department served 300 children at 17 childcare sites throughout the city.

And finally, with the Clean City Initiative, during the week of May 17th and May 21st, the Clean City crew members picked up 120,000 pounds of trash from 33 encampments.

They also removed 673 needles.

It turns out that the crew members did a deep clean at the Homer Harris Park and Mapes Creek.

Cumulatively, the Parks Department has picked up more than 2 million pounds of trash and over 54,000 needles.

This is very good news regarding the Trust for the Public Lands Park Score Index.

Seattle has been ranked ninth in the nation in 2021 by the Trust for Public Lands Park Score Index.

This is a significant jump from last year's ranking in which we ranked 14. The Trust for Public Lands Park Score Index is a national comparison of park systems across 100 most populated cities in the country.

The index evaluates five categories, access, investment, amenities, acreage and equity.

You can read more about the park score ratings at www.tpl or backslash park score or this info as usual on Mondays will be forwarded to your office so you can post as we post in our newsletter.

Finally, summer employment opportunities.

We do this every summer through parks.

The Parks Department is preparing for summer and is hiring for seasonal positions.

The Parks Department is looking for motivated, enthusiastic workers for a variety of positions this summer.

Job postings can be found on the Parks Department website.

And again, that will be in your memo that we send you every Monday morning, and it'll also be posted on our website as well.

In regards to District 5, Albert Davis Park, the Parks Department has updated their reopening timeline for Albert Davis Park.

The department is planning to reopen the park on June 10th.

Parks has done a really good job of cleaning up the park.

cleaning up the playground, reseeding the grass.

It just, it looks really good there now.

So we're hoping with all the neighbors in the community and the library center or the library up there in the community center that we can start and we can reactivate that park.

Big news here, very happy about this finally, the Northgate Pedestrian Bike Bridge, the construction, the next major milestone to install the Northgate Pedestrian Bike Bridge will involve placing the bridge spans across I-5 to ensure safety of construction, safety of the construction crew and members.

SDOT is closing I-5 northbound during the June 12th weekend and southbound on June 19th weekend.

During that time, traffic will be toured to avoid the closure.

This is something that we have been working on since 2015. And so that last piece will come over the bridge Connect North Seattle College with Northgate Mall, NHL Training Center, and all our new housing.

So we are very excited.

Hopefully, this will get done.

And the next step is naming the bridge.

We had a contest a year ago.

And unfortunately, some of the names was people wanted to name it Bridging McBridge Face, which I did not think was a good name.

They also didn't want to name it Little Debbie Bridge.

So that's out.

So we are hoping that the community will come back with some names and one name that we are really wanting to push with our effort in D5 to have an indigenous and African-American footprint and some type of history marking up in the North End.

We would like to think about having it named after Representative John Lewis.

We don't have a lot of those type of African-American, Native American leadership and interactive plaques and information.

In fact, we've been taking those things down that have been wrong in the parks area.

So this is something that we're going to look forward to in naming this very, very important bridge in the north end.

And on a personal note, President Gonzalez, there's a ton of room in D5.

So if you're thinking about living somewhere, just saying, girl, come north.

I appreciate the invitation as I am sitting in Highland Park, the 98106 neighborhood at a wonderful short-term rental opportunity.

I'll definitely keep you in mind, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any comments or questions for Council Member Juarez?

Okay.

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line now and hear next from Council Member Lewis.

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam President.

There are no items on today's agenda from my office or from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I do want to begin just by reporting back on the great committee meeting that we had last week on the work that Just Care, the consortium of providers that has been active in the Chinatown International District and Pioneer Square has been doing to proactively address the housing public health and public safety crises that have been associated with unsanctioned encampments in the city of Seattle.

I want to just briefly report back on a couple of my observations, and I'm sure committee members made some observations as well that I would be interested in discussing over the course of this year in the lead up to our budget conversations.

But the cornerstones of a successful strategy for addressing unsanctioned encampments in the city of Seattle were all provided in the presentation that we've heard.

And indeed, the activities of Just Care could be interpreted essentially as a six-month pilot program, indicating how, if those practices are leaned into and expanded, we have a national best practice right in front of us to address humanely and proactively the crisis that's affecting so many cities around unsanctioned encampments, and a massive proliferation of urban homelessness, which becomes a public health, public safety, and public housing problem.

And I just wanna go through some of those cornerstones.

First, culturally competent outreach, that the consortium of providers with Just Care were very, very careful to select and build a perfect team that was not gonna be siloed, but that was going to be collegial and come together and really try to solve for what they can do in terms of resource delivery to help every single person that they conduct outreach with.

That outreach occurs over a period of weeks and not merely a period of days to make sure that the needs of individuals can be addressed.

And then instead of being displaced from an encampment and continuing to be in a state of chronic homelessness, that people are given the resources and assistance tailored to their needs to make sure that they can get into a place where they can live with dignity, their needs can be addressed, and they will no longer be in a situation where they need to be camping in public.

To make sure that we have shelters that are then resourced to meet those needs of the client, instead of seeking clients that are suitable for our shelter resource.

And I think this is a very important distinction that has led to a lot of problems as we as a region have tried to address chronic homelessness, then making sure that we have shelter that is resourced to the actual scale and scope of the needs that people are presenting with.

Making sure you have a proactive neighborhood-based model of outreach, that it's not fundamentally just a first response kind of system, but a proactive neighborhood-based hub where the business owners in the neighborhood know who the outreach workers are, where residents housed and unhoused know who the outreach workers are, that is based on constant communication and trust and visible deliverables of people knowing that when you call the Just Care team, someone will be out there, someone will meet with you, someone will talk to you about the situation, and people will go and actually address the underlying issue in the encampment.

And we heard this feedback loop several times from Dr. Beckett and from some of the people on our provider panel that in a lot of occasions, there was very deep gratitude of the constituencies and the Pioneer Square and Chinatown International District of being in a position where you could actually call out to this group and this group would show up, they would show up quickly.

And even if they couldn't immediately resolve what the underlying problem is, people felt heard and it felt like there was collaborative problem solving to get to the bottom of chronic issues in the neighborhood.

Based on all of this, I do just wanna share a couple of the numbers.

We do know it's important that one of the components of what we analyze as policymakers is not just the efficacy of programs, but also the cost.

The $49,000 cost at scale per person is essentially what is being looked at under the Just Care model.

I would just say that that number competes very favorably with alternative approaches based on the traditional criminal legal system that drive considerable cost.

I would also just note As Victor shared with us on the provider panel, that that number does not include the estimated average savings of $27,000 per person across other emergency response systems and emergency care facilities.

So that number actually realizes other system savings across a variety of different governments and caseload accounts in addition to being responsive and solving the underlying issues.

It's important to also note that only about 13% of the people who go into Just Care shelters for whatever reason were not good fit and eventually left those shelters, which is a very low number of roughly one in 10 of the people on their caseload.

And that during the period that was monitored by Dr. Beckett, only four individuals out of the hundreds of people that this program made contact with refused to engage or have any kind of service.

I just say that because on balance, I really think that we as a council should continue our support.

And I know that everybody here, the council has been very supportive of this model and expanding this model.

that we really continue to lean into this model and the work that Just Care has been doing to be responsive to the crisis that we see every single day in the unaddressed public health, public safety and housing challenges associated with unsanctioned encampments in the city.

I think it's within our power to address it.

Obviously, we're going to do that with the American Recovery Act resources that are going to be a big part of this requisition to do a joint procurement with the county to keep this program going until the summer of 2022 and to expand it.

But I think that we should continue to really lean into this and look at dedicated revenue streams as part of our budget process to support this work at scale so that everybody in the city as someone they can call and knows that there's going to be a responsive and diligent response to these communities of our on-house neighbors who need support and need our assistance.

Moving on, I do want to appreciate Council Member Juarez's invitation to the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee To discuss several matters related to the waterfront lid as this is something in my district, I will accept that invitation and I look forward to attending that committee on Friday to delve into it.

I appreciate the invitation as I am not a member of that committee, but obviously those discussions have very big implications for District 7, so I will be attending and look forward to that discussion.

Finally, I do just want to flag I will be at the Queen Anne Farmers Market this week, which meets on Thursday afternoon.

It's good to get back into farmers market season, and I know that a number of my colleagues here have already been attending farmers markets in their neighborhoods.

Just a shout out to the general public.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have at the farmers market, and I will try to attend that on a regular basis.

With that, Madam President, I don't have any additional updates.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Colleagues, any questions or comments for Councilmember Lewis?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Morales, and then after Councilmember Morales is going to be Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back, Council President.

It's very good to see you.

There is one item from the Community Economic Development Committee on this afternoon's full council agenda, Council Bill 12087, which lifts the proviso to fund the implementation of participatory budgeting.

There is one amendment that I have added and will be discussing this afternoon.

It abrogates the three positions that are created by the legislation beginning or effective December 31st, 2023. And we can talk a little bit about that this afternoon, but we really just want to give the council the latitude to discuss the best way to proceed with participatory budgeting once the first process is underway and investments are being made.

There are several items on the introduction referral calendar, including six appointments to the LGBTQ Commission, five to the Disability Commission, and five to the Music Commission.

There will be a special meeting of the Community Economic Development Committee this Thursday, June 3rd at 2 p.m.

where we will hear all of these appointments.

We will also hear Council Bill 120092, which is the Council President's bill related to regulating food delivery businesses.

I will leave it to her to discuss that in her report.

Last week, we had two pieces of legislation pass out of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The first is an end to no-cause evictions at the end of leases.

It's jointly sponsored by Council Members Lewis and Sawant, and I want to thank both of them for that co-sponsorship.

The second is the Sound at Home Eviction Defense, which would protect any renter who faced financial hardship during the civil emergency would protect them from facing eviction.

Both bills will be discussed next Monday at full council.

So colleagues, if you have questions about these bills, please do reach out to my aide, Devin Silbernao, and he can brief your staff this week.

So please take advantage of that if you've got any issues with it.

Last week I met with members of the Beacon Hill Council to get an update on their organizing work and the advocacy that they are doing around noise pollution and public lands on Beacon Hill.

They've been doing a lot of work with King County.

a lot of it related to the King County Airport and we are trying to help them continue to advocate for the changes that they want to see in air quality.

I also met with representatives from the LEAD program to get an update on ongoing work in our district and to speak on the possibility for expanding the program into Mount Baker.

There is a lot of interest in the kind of street outreach that many of these programs provide and we want to be as supportive as possible in making sure that our neighbors get access to the resources that they need.

For the past several months, my office has supervised a cohort of graduate students from the University of Washington School of Public Health as they research pandemic-era tenant protections and eviction defense.

They will be giving their practicum presentation today, so I want to thank them all for the hard work they're doing and congratulate them on their research.

and thank you for engaging with our office.

We'll receive their final report this week, and I'm happy to share that with colleagues so you can benefit from our wonderful public institution.

This week I'll be following up with neighbors in Mount Baker who would like to see the neighborhood become a walkable neighborhood dense with affordable housing options and local small business.

I'm sure everyone is aware of some of the conversation happening in the Mount Baker neighborhood in terms of warehouse distribution facilities coming in.

There are a lot of folks organizing to make sure that the neighborhood preference for more appropriate transit-oriented development is heard.

So we continue to meet with them about that work.

We'll also be meeting with folks in the Rainier Beach neighborhood, and we're continuing those regular conversations.

And we are planning another town hall on June 24th to continue our community discussion about safety in the neighborhood and in the Safeway parking lot.

And lastly, I'll be holding virtual office hours on Thursday from 10 to noon.

Folks can schedule a meeting via the council website, and I look forward to talking with you then.

That is my report for this morning.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, I'm not seeing any hands raised.

So next up is Council Member Mosqueda, and then after Council Member Mosqueda is Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Thank you very much and welcome back as well.

Our thoughts are continue to be with you and your family during this tough time and appreciate your leadership as our city continues to go through a tough time as well.

Thank you for being back.

We missed you and thanks to Council Member Herbold for her leadership over the last two weeks as well.

Colleagues, I wanted to let you know there's a few items today that are on the introduction and referral calendar from Um, my committee, this is Council Bill 120093 and Council Bill 120094. These bills will allow for the council to accept and authorize spending that the city has received from the Federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

This legislation includes We also have three appointments to the Community Roots Housing and Public Development Authority.

We'll talk a little bit more about these ARPA funds and the opportunity that is going to be presented in our committee on Friday in just a minute.

We do not have any items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's full council agenda.

Colleagues, on Friday this week is going to be our opportunity to see and discuss the ARPA funds that we have been anticipating over the last almost two months now.

Thanks so much in advance for your time on Friday.

This is a special Friday meeting given the holiday yesterday, and it will start at 9.30 on Friday morning, June 4th.

We're going to have a briefing on the ARPA ordinance, which I just noted is on today's introduction and referral calendar.

And I'll be using just ARPA as a general term to describe both of those bills, because they are being considered as one package or one sort of combined effort to try to provide investments into our most vulnerable communities, small businesses, and workers as we seek to get the tranche $1 out the door.

This Friday's agenda will also include the transparency requirements for contract workers, a briefing and discussion of the housing levy administration and finance plan, and we will have an opportunity to have a discussion and overview from central staff on that first item.

I wanted to thank the Council President again and her office, Cody Ritter, and the team that's been working on developing the ARPA Bill.

We did have the chance to present on Thursday last week with the Mayor's Office and members of the Filipino Community Center with the Mayor's Office and representing all of the hard work that you all as a Council have put into this first draft of the ARPA Relief Bill.

This is an opportunity for us to see for the first time the language that we've crafted with your feedback as a full council and also as community members to try to respond to the crisis that COVID has presented and made worse in many cases manifested in more unaffordable housing, folks falling into homelessness, and people who have had to shutter their small businesses, and our most vulnerable who were dealing with trauma before COVID, now experiencing the trauma of COVID as well.

We are very excited about the proposal that is in front of us on Friday, and I want to thank again Sejal Parikh, Chief of Staff in my office, and my team who's been working with Council President and her team, along with the Mayor's Office and the City Budget Office, I especially want to thank Ali Panucci from Central Staff and Julie Dingley from the CBO along with Director Ben Noble for their work on this first version of the bill.

Colleagues, we had the chance to release this proposal to members of the press on Thursday in D2, Tammi Morales' district at the Filipino Community Village, which also is going to be soon having an open house showcasing the building that we were in, which is the the Filipino community village, which provides affordable housing opportunities specifically for seniors, 55, seniors age 55 and older will be able to soon have an opportunity to call home in the Filipino community village.

And it was very important place to be able to release this first draft of the ARPA bill because much of what we are focused on in the upcoming discussions on Friday will be a large investment into housing and housing stability rental assistance and making sure that our most vulnerable have the services that they need, including access to health services, housing, and that our smallest businesses have the support they need.

We're providing support to small businesses and our local economy as well through cash assistance to local residents who've been harvested by COVID, because we know that this is one of the best ways to stimulate local economic activity, as proven by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and a number of other national organizations who've been really encouraging local jurisdictions to include cash assistance, child care assistance, along with housing assistance through the funds that they're offering.

Really proud of the opportunity that we have in front of us to begin the conversation on Friday about what changes council members and members of the community may want to see.

On Thursday last week, we also had the opportunity to be joined by members of the public as well, including Angie Hicks-Maxey, who's the CEO of Tiny Tots Development Center, who showcased the importance of having folks with lived experience as child care providers helping to provide us with feedback about what should be in this ARPA bill.

and really proud about the $8 million that we've included for direct assistance to child care providers and to create additional capacity across our city because we knew we had many areas with the child care desert even before COVID.

So as we seek to create a more equitable recovery post-COVID, this is something that I know the Council President and I are really proud of being able to include in this proposal and we'll look forward to working with you as we seek to get this first dollars out the door.

I'll have more to say about this on Friday, but I do want to make sure folks know what we talked about on Thursday with members of the press is this is an opportunity for us to see how we can use ARPA dollars and home dollars in June here as the first building block towards that more equitable recovery.

In July, we'll also have the supplemental budget, plus a few trailer bills that offer us federal funds to provide additional support, for example, to seniors and to most vulnerable through additional dollars that will be coming.

And then we will also have the next building block this year, which is the September, October, November budget.

which will include Jump Start's progressive revenue proposal, and we will also be folding into that tranche two allocations.

So there's tremendous need throughout our community.

We as a council have heard the calls, the letters, we've had round table discussions with stakeholders, and we know that there's much more need than 116 million can offer.

And this will be the first investments that we will continue to build upon going forward because as we seek to create a more equitable recovery, we know it's gonna take much more.

much more than this first allotment of dollars.

But very excited to have the discussion on Friday.

And there was some reports about a vote happening on Friday.

I just want to reassure folks that there is no vote planned for our Friday meeting.

This will be the first opportunity to walk through the bill in detail with the central staff's briefing.

It will be a chance for us to tee up ideas or ask some questions.

And then we will have a chance to follow up that meeting with our upcoming meeting on June 15th.

We will have a briefing discussion and possible vote on June 15th.

If we do need additional time, we will plan to continue the conversation into June 16th and that meeting will start at 2 p.m.

instead of 9 30 and that will allow us to wrap up the ARPA discussion for this first tranche and the home investment dollars before the end of the month with an expected vote and full council either on the 21st or the 28th.

So sticking to that timeline to make sure that we can get the dollars out the door as soon as possible.

Again, much more coming on Friday as we discussed the ARPA funds, but just wanted to highlight the importance of that reveal last Thursday.

And Council President, your remarks were present.

and making sure that your office and all of the hard work that you've done was also reflected in that discussion, and we'll have more to come on Friday.

As always, members of the public, know that there will be public comments at the beginning of the committee meeting.

Again, that starts at 9.30, so public comment will open for you to sign up at 7.30 a.m.

And for our council colleagues, please note that you are welcome to come to the Finance and Housing Committee meeting, even if you are not on the official committee, given the importance of this topic.

I want to thank the council members who already let us know that they will be joining so that we can make sure that we're sharing all the information with you in advance and to make sure that we acknowledge your presence as well at the beginning.

In other updates, I wanna say congratulations and welcome back to Erin House.

Erin House is with our office again after a well-deserved family leave to be with her newborn.

And we are very excited that she's home back with Team Teresa and doing all the incredible work that she had led on before.

Folks know Erin from her tremendous work prior to council and you'll remember from before she left in our office six months ago, she was working and will continue to lead on housing and zoning, making sure that we have investments in transit and transportation, and all things related to land use, in addition to a few other items.

So welcome back, Erin House.

We are very excited that you're with us again and very excited to hear more about the BBAY.

We also have the opportunity to provide a few updates from the Office of Finance and Administrative Services.

Just very briefly, FAS continues to support the daily operations of the community vaccination site at Lumen Field, which now has administered over 100,000 vaccines, and they are tying with San Francisco for administering the highest number of vaccinations.

at a high volume vaccination site.

FAS has also been able to present with U.S.

Senator Patty Murray and Representative Larson's office through Anna Pavlik's efforts to join the National Skills Coalition and share what the city has been doing on our priority hire program.

And again, if you haven't seen the report on priority hire, FAS has it on their website and it's an important policy effort that I know I'm looking forward to continuing to expand upon and build upon.

In terms of the West Seattle Bridge, FAS did a purchasing and contracting, FAS's purchasing and contracting office assisted SDOT in completing the general contractor and construction management selection process for the West Seattle Bridge.

Want to offer congratulations to Kramer North America who was selected.

I know we have a lot of very excited building construction member building construction trades members as well who are looking forward to getting to work on that project.

And I know a lot of us in West Seattle and the entire region are excited about that bridge getting completed.

And finally Seattle Animal Shelters 45K is happening again.

The annual 45K is a virtual event again this year, scheduled for the week of June 13th.

Proceeds from the event will go to the Seattle Animal Shelters Help the Animals Fund.

The last day to register for this event is June 20th.

That's it for me, Council President.

Thank you so much, Council Member Esqueda.

Any comments or questions on that report?

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

I did want to say thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for holding it down last week.

Over the last couple of weeks, frankly, our offices have been working really closely together with Mayor Durkin's office on the Seattle Rescue Plan and unfortunately, with the need to take bereavement leave over the last couple of weeks.

I've not been able to be as present and in the weeds as I had hoped to have been in the last couple of weeks, but I certainly appreciate your understanding and your picking up my slack as I worked on addressing the personal issues in my family.

So thank you so much for I'm holding it down and for keeping it going.

I'm looking forward to the conversation in your committee this Friday and looking forward to engaging with all of our colleagues on the council to make sure that we have the right priorities identified and the dial set in the right place.

But I think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that really gives us an opportunity to meet the ongoing challenges and needs of the people of our city across the city in every district.

So thank you so much for that.

Council President, thank you.

There was no slack to pick up.

You and your office are incredible.

So thank you for all of the work that you've done on this.

And colleagues, I just wanted to mention one more thing.

I apologize, Council President.

I forgot to mention one thing related to that.

There's going to be more opportunities to see some more of the details within community as well.

So I just wanted folks to know about the upcoming events.

For example, today at 1230, there's going to be a more in-depth discussion about the homelessness investments that are included.

I know that folks are going to be joining at the Greenwood Library at 1230 and have a chance to talk about those investments in permanent supportive housing, investing in services that help with folks who are experiencing homelessness get into housing.

And then on Wednesday tomorrow at the In Columbia City, there's going to be a small business and neighborhood recovery feature where folks are going to have a chance to look into the details about how we're supporting our smallest businesses, especially those hardest hit by COVID and folks who've been left out of PPP funds from the federal allotments the first time around.

And then Thursday, there's going to be a real focus on the investments in early learning and education.

I'm very excited to see some of those commitments like we just talked about in childcare, but all the way up through apprenticeship programs, for example, as part of our recovery efforts as well.

So if you haven't received that, we'll make sure to send that out to the floor so that you know about those events coming up.

But this is a real chance for us to sort of dive a little bit deeper into each of those areas in advance of our meeting on Friday so that folks have a fuller picture of the important investments that are there.

And again, please remember, this is an investment that will be built upon in the July bills that are forthcoming.

and then the September through November budget deliberations which will include Tronch 2 and Jumpstart.

Speaking of Jumpstart, thanks to our very own Pete Holmes, our city attorney's office, for being in court on Friday to defend Jumpstart relatively quickly.

I just want to thank Pete Holmes and the CAO's team for all of the work they've done to defend progressive policies like jumpstart, hazard pay, and hotel workers over the years.

We've won every time, and I'm looking forward to good news again on this so that we can get those dollars out in community as ASAP.

Thanks so much, Council President.

Good additions to that report, Council Member Esqueda.

Thank you so much.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we're gonna go ahead and hear now from Council Member Peterson, and then after Council Member Peterson, we'll hear from Council Member Simon.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues, and welcome back, Council President Gonzalez.

The Transportation Utilities Committee has one item on this afternoon's full city council agenda, utility relief.

Council Bill 120089 would extend the temporary suspension of interest charges on delinquent utility account balances for customers during COVID-19 emergency.

This will benefit customers who may be struggling with their bills from either of our city-owned utilities, Seattle City Light or Seattle Public Utilities.

This bill, if approved, would be the third extension of this pandemic relief policy.

It was on the introduction referral calendar May 24th.

The three previous bills went straight to the full council, and so is this one.

We passed the previous ordinances in March 2020, September 2020, and December 2020. This bill would extend the suspension of interest charges through, basically through the end of the year.

If you have any questions, please contact Brian Goodnight or Eric McConaghy of our city council central staff before the vote this afternoon.

Our Transportation Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 in the morning.

And so our next committee meeting is this Wednesday, June 2nd.

We have just one item on our committee agenda, just one item, but it's very important.

It is a briefing from our Seattle Department of Transportation on their progress with implementing Vision Zero.

As you know, the goal of Vision Zero in Seattle is to end traffic deaths and serious injuries on our city streets by the year 2030. As Transportation Choices Coalition and SDOT have reminded us, the month of June is Ride Transit Month.

Ride Transit Month is a time to celebrate transit riders, to showcase the benefits of riding transit, and to encourage those who don't normally ride transit to give it a try.

This council renewed the Seattle Transportation Benefit District last year, and voters then overwhelmingly approved it.

We've got several light rail stations opening up in October, including two in District 4, one in District 5. Our transit is ready for you when you are ready for transit.

A brief report from District 4. Colleagues, in case you have not already learned of this from media reports, there was a fatal shooting Monday morning in a small park in Northeast Seattle's District 4 called Olga Park.

As reported in the Seattle Times, a 31-year-old man was shot to death at a homeless campsite in Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood.

This frightening and horrible loss of life is a tragedy.

I share the frustration of many of my constituents with the lack of progress in bringing people inside who are living in unsafe and unauthorized encampments here and throughout Seattle.

Many neighbors of Ogle Park have been warning the executive departments of the dangers there, including the recent fires.

But unfortunately, there have not been positive results yet to get people inside there so the park can be made safe again.

I visited the park again yesterday and this morning to assess conditions in person.

With the fires and the murder in this location, the situation is unacceptable.

I appreciate the recent responsiveness of our police officers and firefighters.

While we wait for our Seattle police detectives to continue their criminal investigation to bring justice for the murder victim, I will continue to implore the other executive departments and our nonprofit partners to prioritize appropriate solutions for this park to bring people inside to prevent further harm.

Last week, I attended the Wallingford Community Council meeting.

Their guest speaker was former House Speaker Frank Chopp.

He discussed the substantial progress made by the state legislature this past session, which, of course, was tracked by our city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations, as well as by own engagement of several council members with state legislators.

Representative Chopp highlighted police reform, funds for low-income housing, and much more.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Szilagyi.

Good morning.

Good morning, President Gonzalez, and deepest condolences once again to you and your family at the tragic loss of your mother-in-law and the loss of your home.

My office wishes you the best in all the recovery that you're going to have to do.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

There were three renter rights bills voted out of last week's Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee that was held on May 25th.

Council Bill 120046, which is the legislation from my office banning the eviction of school children, their families, and educators, all educators in the public schools during the school year.

Council Bill 120090 which is the legislation jointly sponsored from council member Morales's office and my office both as two prime sponsors creating a right of first refusal for renters to renew their lease unless a landlord has a just cause for refusing to renew the lease and this is a bill also co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis, just wanted to clarify, I mean, earlier in this briefing, Council Member Morales described my office as co-sponsor, which is not exactly accurate because our offices are jointly prime sponsoring these bills and we're really excited that we are able to, my office is really happy that we're able to bring this unified bill as opposed to having two separate bills.

And I also wanted to thank, once again, the staff at the city attorney's office and all the staff at the central staff who have helped us develop this legislation.

And finally, Council Bill 120077, which is the legislation from Council Member Morales' office, creating a defense to eviction of rent that accrued during the COVID emergency, which I've also happily co-sponsored.

All three of these bills were voted out of committee with a divided report by council members Morales and Lewis and myself voting in favor and council member Peterson opposed to the bills.

As a result, they are not on today's city council agenda and will instead be delayed for one week and will be on the June 7th full city council agenda.

In addition, on June 7th, Resolution 31998, which is a resolution from my office urging the mayor and the governor to extend the eviction moratoriums through the end of this year, will return for a vote.

Council members may remember that that resolution last came for a vote on March 15th, two weeks before the city and state eviction moratoriums were poised to expire, and Minutes before the city council meeting was was going to begin by the resolution would have been voted on Mayor Durkin relented and extended the moratorium for an additional three months and I really thank all the hundreds, if not thousands of community members who weighed in, including signing the petition from my office and several other community petitions, citywide, regionwide, statewide, and successfully pressured both the mayor of the city and Governor Inslee, who also did the same a little bit later.

Uh, and so those moratoriums are now going to expire on June 30th.

I had proposed at that time when the resolution had last come for a vote and city council unanimously agreed to hold the vote on that resolution.

until June 7th because the eviction moratoriums, as I said, are now expected to expire on June 30th and that would be nothing short of a disastrous situation for renters because we know as mainstream economists have predicted throughout the nation that there is very likely to be a tsunami of evictions once these moratoriums expire because of the dire situation that renters have found themselves in.

And this is going to be true regardless of the economic recovery, which is of course true and is welcome, and people are getting back into jobs, but the underlying crisis that was created over the whole of last year hasn't disappeared, as we all know.

Last Friday, my office sent all council member offices amendment language to update that resolution to account for the changes over the past three months.

The amendment adds up to date statistics and language on recent community organizing in favor of extending their moratoriums, both citywide and statewide to the end of this year.

The amended resolution quotes from Washington Community Action Network outreach letter, which says two weeks ago, the Washington Community Action Network began a letter writing campaign to Governor Inslee stating, quote, we are calling for an extension of the eviction moratorium to the end of the year to make sure renters have time to access rent relief programs, get back to their normal incomes and can get caught up on rent.

We want some important policies in the state legislature.

but to make sure those policies are effective, we need to ensure renters have time to catch up on rent." The amended resolution also quotes from a Washington Low Income Housing Alliance letter. And the resolution says, last Friday, the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance began a letter writing campaign to Governor Inslee stating that, quote, incredible numbers of renters are applying for rental assistance and it will take months to get the funds distributed. Lifting the moratorium and allowing landlords to proceed with evictions a month from now would be grossly irresponsible. The amendment also accounts for the provision in Senate Bill 5160 that shamefully ends the statewide moratorium on June 30. And this has happened in state legislature that has a clear majority of the Democratic Party. To be clear, while the statewide moratorium is scheduled to end on June 30, according to that bill, there is nothing legally stopping Governor Inslee from issuing a new proclamation. reenacting the eviction moratorium, and the legislation says nothing about the city's moratorium. So including that resolution, there are four renters' rights-related bills coming to the city council meeting on June 7th in one week. If council members have any amendments you intend to propose, I wanted to again urge that you send them out as soon as possible. Please talk to my office if you have any questions. or any proposed amendments and really hope that the members of the public will have the opportunity to see any proposed amendments to make sure that they're prepared for them. If there are any questions or concerns that we can answer them. In last week's committee meeting, Council Member Peterson proposed four amendments to the legislation banning school year evictions of school children, their families, and educators. The amendments, if they were passed, would divide educators, excluding the lowest paid educators from eviction protections. require school children and their families to sign declarations of poverty to be protected, remove the protections from school children if their landlord owns fewer than five homes, and this is, you know, even though we know that big landlords use a common tactic of incorporating small LLCs in order to hide that they own numerous properties, and finally to end all the protections after 18 months. None of those amendments were passed in committee and I appreciate council members Lewis and Morales voting against those amendments. I appeal to council member Peterson again to let members of the public know in advance if he intends to bring the amendments back at the full city council meeting on the 7th because for the committee members of the public had barely any notice at all. so that renters can let the City Council know what they feel about the amendments. And I, of course, from my office and from the activists, many activists we're working with on the ground, we would urge City Council members to vote against all of these amendments. As we know, the Seattle Education Association strongly supports the legislation, and without any of the watering down amendments, And as I've mentioned before, the representative assembly of the union passed a nearly unanimous resolution in support of this legislation. The next meeting of the sustainability and renters rights committee will be at its regularly scheduled time at the end of the month, Tuesday, June 22nd at 2 p.m. The full agenda of that committee meeting is still being developed by my office, but it will discuss renters rights legislation, One of the legislation from my office requiring landlords to pay relocation assistance if they economically displace their tenants by forcing them out with unconscionable rent increases. And the legislation from my office originally proposed by the Seattle Renters Commission to give renters six months notice for rent increases. And I wanted to thank the work of the Seattle Renters Commission on this and other renters rights provisions that they have done work on, including the winter evictions ban that my office brought forward last year in following the proposal from the Seattle Renters Commission, which the council passed. As I've explained in the past, my office has also sent the rent control legislation from my office to the city attorney's office for review and introduction. And this is, of course, a strong rent control bill, which means that rent, if passed as is, rent would be allowed to increase only by the inflation rate, and it would eliminate serious problems in rent control bills that we have seen in other places, including the state of California, which includes some deadly loopholes, corporate loopholes, like vacancy decontrol, which basically means that once an existing tenant vacates a unit and a unit is vacant, then the rent spikes up to at market or near market levels. And so the legislation that we've proposed that the city attorney will be reviewing, of course, excludes any such loopholes. We are also preparing legislation from the office for commercial rent control to allow struggling small businesses to have rent control to address the problem of default evictions. And as I said before, this would be the sort of the part two of the legislation that we brought forward from the city council and the city council passed recently to make sure that all renters facing evictions have the right to a lawyer to defend them in court. But we know that default evictions are a huge problem and we need to address that as well. To create transferable rental history so that renters do not have to pay for new background checks for each apartment that they apply to, prohibiting credit checks in rental histories, and again, this is something that the Seattle Renters Commission has also talked about, and to create standardized lease terms to prevent onerous, undemocratic, and abusive terms in renters' leases. And of course, paramount in all this is to have to build a citywide, statewide, and indeed a nationwide movement to cancel rent and mortgage and utility debt because it is going to be crippling debt Already we know the average debt is 4,000 or so. The numbers keep changing over the several months, but it's thousands of dollars for millions of renting households throughout the nation. So we have to make sure that working people, renters, union members, socialists, build a movement to win a full renter's bill of rights, including canceling rent and mortgage and utility debt. to make sure that big banks, corporate landlords, and property development corporations pay for the crisis, not working people. And so the legislation that will come to the city council on June 7, including the resolution to urge the mayor and the governor to extend the eviction moratoriums to the end of this year is just sort of the beginning of this, what we need to win, which is a full bill of rights for renters. And while the bills coming on June 7th address different parts of Seattle's municipal code, they are all, of course, pointed in the same direction, which is to put renters' rights above profit-seeking interests of primarily corporate landlords and to prioritize housing stability above gentrification. Also, to be clear, these bills are not just meant as fixes to patch over temporary challenges that emerged during COVID but really to address the long standing crisis because we know for Seattle renters, for example, who constitute half of the city, the housing crisis, the affordability crisis was bad. even before COVID and already we now see statistics impact statistics released from corporate landlord websites, which show that they are actually seeing rent shoot up even more so than they even even better for them. That is, you know, for corporate landlords and property management corporations, things are even better now from before the pandemic. So it is it is an ominous situation that renters are heading into. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Sawant.

Any comments or questions on that report?

I am not seeing any hands raised.

Oh, Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

As it relates to the eviction moratorium, this is a resolution to the mayor asking that she extend the eviction moratorium.

Is that correct, Council Member Sawant?

It is except it is addressing both the governor and the mayor Has there been any thought to

Looking at potentially very narrow language to address the fact that I think we all are hearing increasingly from small landlords around obligations that they have around purchase and sale agreements that they are looking to effectuate where there is, I've got one small landlord that is under, has been under a purchase and sale agreement for the sale of his home that is being rented, that he's under financial penalty for not completing because of the inability to require the tenant to leave.

And so I'm just I'm hearing more from small landlords who are seeking to sell their properties, some that are actually under, like I said, a legal agreement to sell a property and that they're being penalized from not being able to execute, and others with different circumstances, and just wondering whether or not, without necessarily getting specific in the resolution, there's any thought to recognizing these rather unique and specific situations that some small number of landlords are dealing with.

Don't want to blow a hole in the eviction moratorium, but just want to recognize that people do have individual situations and circumstances that I'm interested in figuring out if there's a way to consider them.

Thank you Council Member Herbold for mentioning that.

I mean, this is of course just a resolution.

As you know, it's not a detailed policy.

And of course, just as an aside, I would say before responding directly is that there might be some policies we will need to cover the needs of genuine small landlords without putting the penalty on renters.

And I just wanted to signal my willingness that If you're interested in looking at that, I would obviously be very interested in looking at that as well.

With the caveat that whatever we do has to be on the basis of actually protecting small landlords, not corporations like Windermere.

And I'm mentioning Windermere not just randomly, but because during public comment, there were some landlords who spoke as small landlords, but we did some research on who they were and they were actually spokespeople for big corporations, and we know landlords like Carl Hagelin, for example, have separate LLCs, but each of the LLCs has a few units.

So anyway, my point is that as long as we make sure that the policies are protecting genuinely small landlords, we absolutely should do that.

In fact, small landlords also, many of them are struggling, and we should make sure they are not penalized either, but it shouldn't come at the cost of renters.

But as far as the resolution is concerned, Council Member Herbold, if you wanted to propose some language and, you know, send it to us or something or discuss, I'm absolutely open to looking at that.

Without, as you said, without blowing a hole in the eviction moratorium to make sure that we do that.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions on that report?

Okay, hearing none, I will go ahead and conclude this section of the report with my own briefing.

On this afternoon's school council agenda, I will have two items on the introduction referral calendar.

One is an appointment to the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Oversight Committee, and the second item is the council bill that was referenced by Council Member Morales in her report.

This is a legislation that will be discussed at the Community Economic Development Committee on June 3rd.

And this piece of legislation is modeled after California's Fair Food Delivery Act and is a very simple and straightforward bill that would require written agreements between restaurants and bars with third-party app delivery platforms.

I want to thank Vy Nguyen in my office for working up this policy and doing an immense amount of stakeholder engagement in advance of the introduction of this bill.

and look forward to the conversation in the Community Economic Development Committee on June 3rd.

If you do have any questions about the bill, you can reach out to Dean Nguyen in my office, or you can reach out directly to me.

Happy to have conversations with you about that particular piece of legislation.

The next meeting of the Governance and Education Committee is next week.

June 8th at 2 o'clock p.m.

We're planning to have four items in committee.

The first is the aforementioned appointment to the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Oversight Committee.

We'll also hear and discuss appointments for the city's Redistricting Commission.

And we will also receive a briefing and have a discussion with the Immigrant and Refugee Commission members.

And then lastly, we'll receive a briefing from the Department of Education and Early Learning on the K-12 and Seattle Seattle Preschool investments on, I'm sorry, Seattle Promise investments in the 19-20 school year we missed last year due to the pandemic.

So if you have any questions about any of these items, again, you can reach out to my committee clerk and senior policy advisor, V. Nguyen.

I don't have anything else to report out relevant to my committee assignments and my committee work, but I'm happy to take any questions if there are any.

All right, hearing no questions, colleagues, is there anything else for the good of the order?

Seeing that there are no other items of business on this morning's council briefing agenda, we are now adjourned and I look forward to seeing you all at two o'clock.